WIKIPEDIAAnne McCaffrey, author of the fantasy series "Dragonriders of Pern" has died at 85.

Wired reports that scribe Anne McCaffrey, author of the fantasy series "Dragonriders of Pern" has died at 85.

Random House Books has also acknowledged the writer's death. A post now up at the publisher's site reads, "McCaffrey died at her home in Ireland on November 21st shortly after suffering a stroke."

She grew up the daughter of Army Colonel George Herbert McCaffrey. A civilian between the wars, his work took the family from Cambridge to Montclair.

During World War II, with her father in Europe, McCaffrey attended Stuart Hall, a girls boarding school in Staunton, Virginia which required Episcopalian worship services and Bible study that she did not complete. She graduated from Montclair High School and, in 1947, graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College with a major in Slavonic Languages and Literature.

The trailblazing writer helped usher in a new era for women writers of science-fiction and fantasy. McCaffrey was the first to be given a Hugo Award in 1968 and a Nebula Award one year later. She was also the first woman with a science fiction title on The New York Times Best Seller list in 1978, with "The White Dragon."

Extremely prolific, she published nearly 100 books, mainly fiction, starting in 1967. She emigrated to Ireland (from America) in 1970. McCaffrey was also a large collaborator. Up until 1990, she co-authored more than 30 books -- 15 with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. She also co-wrote with Margaret Ball, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Jody Lynn Nye and S. M. Stirling.